If Your Eye

Matthew 5:27-30


"You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matthew 5:27,28). It seems like Jesus' teaching on adultery is an expansion of the beatitudes since like in the beatitudes he's most concerned with the heart. Jesus it seems is not particularly overwhelmed with outward good behavior (though this is nice), but he's constantly getting after people's heart.

I've always been a bit traumatized by the text that follows the verse on lust. It says, "If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell" (Matthew 5:29, 30).

The metaphor is extreme, powerful, painful. Gouge out your eye? Cut off your hand? Maybe the metaphor is so strong because the lesson must be forceful. You must get to the root of the problem--you must take the extreme action needed to get over any remaining infatuation with sin and self.

Now, you can go around cutting off the weeds of sin. You can pluck up a sin or two even, but as anyone knows how fast weeds grow--if you don't get the weeds by the root, they will just keep coming back. Gouge your eye? Cut off your hand? You bet. Do the most extreme thing you can to run from sin--the radical action taken--surrender your heart, your life, your will, you prerogative to do your thing.

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28). Strangely enough, this radical action ends in rest. What is the end of lust? It is rest, resting in Christ alone.